The Organization of Jade Production at Cancuen, Guatemala

The Cancuen dataset is unique in its large size. Fully 3,538 jade artifacts, with a combined mass of 91.6 kilograms, were recovered from residential excavations at the site. Of The manufacture of jade goods was a long and arduous process that required numerous technological stages and a variety of tools. Unfortunately, the archaeological record is often too fragmentary to allow for the identification of these technologies and tools. Even more difficult is assessing how these tools and technologies impacted and were informed by social structure. In an attempt to address these issues, I combine ethnographic, ethnohistorical, and archaeological data to identify, describe, and interpret the material correlates and social processes surrounding the production of jade at the Late Classic Maya site of Cancuen, Guatemala.